The Armored Saint

by Myke Cole

  Boom. The devil was hammering on the roof. She heard wood splintering above, and a single slate tile shattered at her feet. Heloise darted across the floor and scrambled up the war-machine’s leg, wriggling onto the padded ledge in the center. It had hidden her from Tone, it would have to shelter her from the devil now.

  The inside of the war-machine was close and dark, and Heloise could feel the weight of the thick metal all around her. It made her feel trapped and safe at the same time. Barnard had buckled the straps, making leather loops inside the machine’s hands, elbows, chest, and feet. Heloise wriggled into the chest loop, still kneeling on the padded ledge that would be a seat for a man grown. If she stepped off, her feet would dangle in the air, too far from the foot loops to reach them.

  Boom. Another crack from above her. Something thick and heavy slammed into the war-machine’s head, hard enough to rock the machine to the side. It tottered, and for a moment, Heloise worried it would fall over, but the shield acted as a counterweight, and it righted. She saw the fragment of a thick beam on the floor. Three more slate tiles fell beside it, bursting. Stone shards pattered against the war-machine’s metal legs.

  Heloise put her arm into the metal sleeve of the machine’s left arm. She was able to hook her elbow through the leather loop in the elbow and reach the one in the war-machine’s hand, but that left her right arm only just able to grab the elbow strap in the machine’s right arm. Her eyes were still level with the metal gorget. She cursed her age. If she were just a little bigger, she could drive it. If only she knew how. It seemed simple enough, but she couldn’t be sure unless she started the engine. The salted cheesecloth bag of seethestone hung beside her head, the chute leading to the engine canister beside it. Beside the chute was a metal handle that would pull the canister lid shut, trapping the gas inside and powering the machine.

  Even if she loaded the canister, she would need water to set the stone to seething.

  Boom. The vault shook. Cracks appeared above the bronze door, spidering upward. There was another splintering crash, more beams and tiles banged off the machine’s top. If only she could drive the machine, she could knock the door down, get out of here. And then what? Would you go out and fight the devil? But Heloise knew she would. Here, encased in the dark weight of the war-machine, she wasn’t afraid anymore, only frustrated, furious at her height and the length of her limbs, at her ignorance. Sacred Throne, please. Help me to make this right. The rage surged within her, her vision tinting red and her hands curling into fists. She fought it down with an effort. Blind anger would not help her figure a way out of this.

  BOOM.

  The vault lurched, the bronze door canting suddenly, buckling at the corners. The spiderweb of cracks in the timber above it exploded with a roar, and Heloise shut her eyes as wood and stone splinters sprayed across her, filling her mouth with dust. The machine rocked left and right as beams fell on it, each heavier than the last. She ducked her head, her ears ringing as the blows sounded against the metal.

  Cold air rushed in, chill raindrops pattered against her face. It smashed through the roof. Then there was a rending roar, as if the whole workshop were crying out, and suddenly the machine was pressing down on her, harder and harder. Her legs popped off the ledge, dropping into the machine’s legs, scraping against the metal frame all the way down. Her right leg slashed against a rivet, digging a deep furrow in her skin. The machine lurched to one side, groaning, and suddenly her right foot had reached the bottom of the machine’s leg, slamming against the buckled strap hard enough to make Heloise’s teeth click together.

  One moment, her eyes were level with the machine’s gorget, and the next she was looking out the helmet’s eye-slit. The crown of the helmet rang against her head and she saw stars, felt something hot and sticky run into her eyes.

  She screamed, blinked the red out of her eyes, coughed out dust and swallowed blood. Her leg sang and her ears rang and her head felt like it had been split open. She shook her head, though the move hurt so badly that she retched, hanging by the chest strap. She was hurt, but she was alive.

  The machine was canted sideways. The collapsing roof had crushed it into a bent posture, making it a metal hunchback. The cold rain on her face cleared her head a bit, stinging as the water ran into her wounds. She would be all right, she just had to—

  There was a sound of wood breaking and something huge and heavy slammed into the machine’s right arm. The metal groaned, protested, and sheared off, the frame crushing down on her hand. The metal closed like a vise, making the sleeve into a tapering tunnel, narrowing to a tight point at the machine’s metal elbow.

  And her flesh hand.

  Heloise lost time. One moment, she was in the worst pain of her life, her hand ground to powder, the metal shards of the machine piercing her arm, her face, dragging down her side. The next, she was dimly aware of waking up, as if from a long sleep. Vomit was drying on the front of her shift. Her head throbbed so that even the faint light reaching her through the storm-addled sky was an agony. She closed her eyes, but it didn’t help. Her arm, her side, and her leg felt as if they’d been flayed. Her hand hurt least of all, until she tried to wiggle her fingers, producing a white flare of agony that nearly made her faint again. She sawed her head to the right, looking down the tapering metal tunnel that was the machine’s arm. The frame had been crushed almost to a point before being ripped off at the elbow, leaving a circle of splayed, jagged ends, like the petals of some sharp metal flower, just about to open.

  Her hand was trapped inside, little more than a red bag of shattered bones. The stretched surface of the skin was swollen, purple, weeping blood. She could feel the tiny bones grinding against one another when she’d wiggled what remained of her fingers. The machine’s elbow strap was pulled tight across the crushed mess.

  She expected to be sick again, or to faint, but her mangled hand felt far away now, someone else’s limb. She looked back at her left arm, whole, the skin strangely pale and smooth after looking at the ruin of her right hand. Looking at this half of her, she could almost believe she was all right.

  Am I going to die? She was amazed to find that the thought didn’t scare her, only filled her with a deep sadness at the thought that she would never see her parents or Basina again.

  Basina.

  She was likely outside the ruin of the broken bronze door, with the devil. She would need help. The thought made Heloise twitch, her body jerking with a need to escape the machine, but the agony in her hand, leg, and head answered that in an instant. She was stuck. She would have to rip her right hand free to get out, and that would be the end of her.

  The stink of seethestone suddenly rose in her nostrils, making her sneeze. She heard a soft sizzling and turned her head to the salted cloth bag. Some rain must have spattered down inside, activating the seethestone. The bag began to dance gently on its drawstrings, swelling with the gas building inside. Heloise’s heart sank. If only the seethestone were in the engine, instead of in the bag. Then she could . . .

  Heloise turned her head so sharply that she felt the muscles in her neck protest. Pain lanced through her skull, but she ignored it, swallowed the sickness that rose in her throat. You will not faint you will not faint you will not faint.

  The tube leading to the engine canister was within her reach. The collapsing frame had crushed it halfway shut, but if she pushed hard enough, she could probably get some of the stone in there. Praise the Emperor. Thank you.

  She slid her good left arm out from the strap, reached across and thrust her hand into the bag. The stone, normally dry and waxy, felt slimy now. It bubbled against her palm as she seized it, tickling her skin. Reminding her of Twitch’s nose against her hand. She pushed the thought away. Get it into the engine before it’s spent.

  She lifted her hand out of the bag, and the tickling became burning. She brought her hand to the tube, and the burning became agony. It felt as if her palm and fingers were steeped in fire. As if the seethestone were an army o
f stinging insects savaging the skin beneath. She screamed, her hand shaking, the slick chunk of stone threatening to slide out of her palm.

  She thought of Basina, of her father, of the Tinkers. She thought of her father running from the Maior’s privy, of Clodio slumping to the ground. All of it because of her. You will not drop it. I don’t care if your hand burns off.

  She raised her hand to the chute, pinning the stone against it. It was too large to fit in the half-crushed opening, and it slid against the metal, threatening to pop out of her grip. She pushed harder, and the agony increased. She felt her skin sloughing off in patches as the stone’s slick, burning edges dug in. She loosened her grip, got her palm firmly behind the stone, and pushed.

  Heloise could hear a screaming, high and long, impossibly loud. It took her a moment to realize it was herself. The pressure against her palm suddenly ceased, and she heard the stone tumbling down the chute, rattling against the metal sides, until it gave a final clang against the engine’s bottom, splashing into the pooling rainwater.

  Heloise screamed again, this time in triumph, and hauled on the handle swinging the canister lid shut. Her burned flesh screamed, and she swung her eyes away, not wanting to see, but she couldn’t help but catch a glimpse of her hand, the surface pink and bubbling.

  A roaring rose in her ears, and at first she thought it was the devil, finally through the roof and after her, but then the frame around her began to rattle, and she realized it was the war-machine coughing to life, coming awake around her.

  The machine was half-crushed, bent at the waist, and missing half its right arm. But it was still upright. Like its driver, crippled, but alive.

  She turned and put her burned hand back into the machine’s left sleeve, slid it behind the looped strap there. It hurt, but not as badly as when she’d clutched the seethestone, and the pain troubled her less, now that there was so much of it, and everywhere at once. She gave the strap a tug, holding her breath, not daring to believe that she could drive a tinker-made engine of war.

  The machine’s left arm jerked up, sliding the shield across the frame’s chest, covering the eye slit. Heloise lowered her arm and the machine’s arm lowered with it, until the shield’s top edge was just below her eyes. Her left foot still dangled over empty space, but she wiggled her right one under the foot strap, gave it an experimental tug. The machine’s right foot trembled in response.

  And suddenly, the pain didn’t matter. She was Heloise the girl no longer. She was taller than a man grown, taller than Barnard, even. The falling roof had crushed the machine small enough for her limbs to reach, for her to drive it. It was a piece of luck so great it had to be divine.

  Emperor, if this is a sign, I see it. I know this is my fault. Help me to make it right. She raised her shoulder, felt the strap pull in response, and the engine driving the rods along the machine’s frame. The shield came up, a solid piece of metal that two men couldn’t lift on their own. She glanced down at her ruined hand, sprouting from the machine’s broken arm, the red stigma at the center of a sharp, jagged metal flower. It was a tiny weapon compared to the hammer Barnard had been trying to mount, but it would have to do.

  She lifted her right foot, then let it drop, turned her body so it tugged the chest strap on one side. The war-machine responded, limping, lurching, spinning until it faced the battered bronze door, askew in the splintered frame. Her wounds screamed, her ruined hands crying out, but she welcomed the pain now. She was the Emperor’s Hand. He had hurt her to give her the means to save her village, to save Basina and her parents.

  The machine had been crushed to one side, allowing her right foot to reach the strap that controlled the right leg. But her left foot was unable to reach its strap, and so the machine’s left leg was limp and dragging. She took a limping, shuddering step and the war-machine limped with her. Within moments, her armpits and chest were rubbed raw by the leather chest strap. Each step bounced her, dragging the shoulder straps down, making the arms swing and the entire machine shudder and lurch.

  She reached the door and punched out with her good hand. The shield’s corner swept up, smashing into the bronze with a clang louder than the bell in the steeple of the Emperor’s shrine. The door spun away as if it were made of wood, out into the workshop beyond.

  Heloise stepped out and into the light.

  The workshop was destroyed. Tables, tools, and anvils were scattered on the dirt floor, soaking in the gray water from overturned quenching buckets mixing with the clear droplets of rain. The devil had smashed through the roof from the workshop entrance all the way through the vault, so that what had once been a forging floor was now an amphitheater, open to the air. The crucible bubbled and spat, protesting the cool water falling into it from the spitting sky. The devil stood, snarling and hissing, reaching for the vault with a clawed hand.

  Barnard stood before it, swinging his giant forge hammer in both his hands, knocking it into the monster’s fist, driving it back. Gunnar was at his side, his gloved hand holding a long rod of stock iron, its end still glowing cherry red from the forging fire, casting sparks at the touch of the rain. He thrust it into the devil’s face, forcing it back a step, hissing and snapping. Its mouth opened impossibly wide, the jaw unhinging like a snake’s. Triple rows of sharp black teeth shone wetly, a cluster of tiny black tongues waved like a field of malevolent flowers.

  It gave another raptor shriek, so loud that Heloise felt her ears ring, but it was scant pain compared to her hands, her leg, her side.

  And now, when she needed it, her terror gave way to anger. Hot and heedless, as it had been on the road to Hammersdown, when all of this had begun. Heloise screamed back, so loud and so long that her throat felt raw. She took another step, the machine shaking as she advanced, the one working leg kicking through the rubble.

  The devil turned, hissed, eye clusters narrowing as it focused on her. The fear kindled in her belly again, making her limbs weak. The creature crouched, fanning its six arms out, ignoring Barnard and his son as it turned to face her.

  Beneath the crook of its lowest arm, Heloise could see Basina, her dress filthy and soaked, her eyes lit with terror. She held a wood axe in her hands, far too short to be of much use against the monster, but she advanced on it anyway.

  Basina. Clearly terrified, moving forward anyway.

  Heloise smelled rotting wood, the odor of the kind of life that is happy where there is too much water and not enough light. The monster opened its oblong mouth, waving black tongues vibrating a hiss.

  “Come on!” Heloise screamed, rolling her shoulder, banging the shield’s edge into the war-machine’s metal chest, raising a clang that echoed around them.

  The devil shouted back.

  Heloise charged.

  She got the shield up just in time to block the devil’s first punch. The heavy fist was followed by a second, then a third, so powerful that it battered the shield’s edge back against the driver’s cage, making it shake around her. She rolled her opposite shoulder, trying to bring her right arm to bear, but the jagged metal shards were too short to reach around the shield and strike the devil on the other side. She would have to turn her body sideways, coming out from behind the shield’s protection, to make a good strike.

  Or she could hold it fast until the Tinkers brought it down.

  “Basina!” Her cry turned into a shriek as the devil’s face appeared over the top of her shield, mouth snapping at her, spraying the top of her head with stinking spit. It punched again and again, driving the war-machine back, but Heloise launched herself forward, and the machine moved with her, throwing itself behind the shield, pushing against it. Each blow made the frame rattle and her wounds sing. Her pulped hand screamed as the leather strap jerked against it, threatening to make her faint again, but Heloise hung on. The Tinkers had done their work well. The shield was good, stout metal, strongly made. It would hold.

  The devil seemed to realize this too, wrapped two hands over the top of the shield, pressed dow
n, trying to make room to push its head inside the driver’s cage. It growled, snarled, but blessedly did not shriek. In the tight space inside the machine, Heloise was sure the cry would have deafened her. Having it so close was bad enough. The stink of rot, of boggy ground, was so powerful that she gagged.

  Heloise felt the shield tremble, heard the sound of grinding metal. The devil snarled and pushed harder. Slowly, the shield began to drop. Heloise screamed, pushing her shoulder up, felt the strap cinch tight around her, straining against the skin. The pain was so great that she felt sick again. The tinker-engine roared, belched a great cloud of smoke. The metal groaned as it strained against the monster’s weight.

  The shield stopped, shivered, and slowly began to rise.

  The devil growled and pushed harder, and the shield ground to a halt. Heloise felt the machine straining, could hear the bellow of the engine behind her. She pushed against the strap with everything she had. She could feel the charred skin on her burned hand slide away against the leather strap, grit her teeth to keep from vomiting. Nothing. The shield would not move. Heloise and the devil pushed against one another for another moment, neither able to gain the advantage.

  At last the devil took a step back, putting another hand on the shield’s edge, pulling and pushing at the same time. The shield trembled. You can’t do this forever. Sooner or later, it’s going to get the shield out of the way. You have to do something.

  She pulled against the chest strap and the machine bent lower, the shield’s corner sinking. There was a sickening moment of terror as the metal moved out of the way of the driver’s cage and the devil seized the chance, mouth yawning wide, sharp teeth racing toward her.